


Darkest Night

by lesbianettes



Category: 9-1-1: Lone Star (TV 2020)
Genre: (Just Drugging), (no sexual assault), Car Accidents, Career Ending Injuries, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Depression, Established Carlos Reyes/TK Strand, Hurt Carlos Reyes, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss, Nerve Damage, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Serious Injuries, Trauma, Whump, driving under the influence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:54:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28727673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianettes/pseuds/lesbianettes
Summary: Carlos has a very bad night.
Relationships: Carlos Reyes/TK Strand
Comments: 14
Kudos: 105





	1. Chapter 1

Carlos goes out more to waste an evening than because he feels like it. TK is on shift with Michelle, his partner is on duty, and three nights at home, alone, in a row make him want to go stir crazy. The simple solution is a trip to the bar for some cold beer and wishing his boyfriend was there with him. It’s sad, sure, but it’s something to do and he spends his time at the bar on his phone, sending TK cute pictures of dogs he finds and links to new hoodies he’d like. 

“You want a third?” the bartender asks when Carlos finishes nursing his second beer, lukewarm by then because of how slowly he drinks. He’ll have to tip heavy for taking up the space, but he doesn’t mind. Sitting at a table would be even less bearable. “Or are you closing up?”

“I’ll take another.”

She pours him his next glass, condensation clinging to the cool surface, and he thanks her while he finishes a text to Michelle about making plans for the next night they both have off. It’s this distraction that sets the evening in motion. The bartender turns her back to pour a shot for another patron, and the rowdy guys to Carlos’ right make the decision to slip something in his drink. One distracts him with a flirtation- which he politely declines- while another drops the tab into his drink and watches it dissolve. 

It’s a few minutes later when Carlos takes a large drink, and recognizes that there’s something wrong. He doesn’t feel the effects of the drug immediately, but he is a cop, and he knows that a salty taste is never a good sign. He glances around him to pinpoint who might have done it, but no one sticks out to him. No one watching for too long, no one making their way away from him too quickly. It doesn’t matter, he supposes, who did it, so long as he gets to safety. So he closes his tab with a generous tip and walks out of the bar to his car. 

Halfway across the parking lot, he begins to feel it. His legs go weak under him, and he starts to feel a little fuzzy around the edges. Definitely no state to drive, he decides, but he still gets into his car and locks all the doors to protect himself. Although it’s hard to admit, he’s scared. He’s supposed to be vigilant. Someone was able to drug him, and he didn’t even notice. It could have been anyone. He makes a note in his phone, lest he forget, to mention it on his next shift so it can be investigated. The last thing he wants to deal with right now are his coworkers. 

“I should call someone,” he says aloud, his voice slurring in the cold air of his car. “I should call.”

His first try is Michelle, but she doesn’t answer. Then TK, who also doesn’t pick up. They must be on a call, he thinks, so he’ll have to wait it out here for the time being. Hopefully, he’ll be able to drive sooner rather than later. People come in and out of the bar for a while longer, and the men to his left leave with some girl stumbling between them, the whole lot drunk. Normally he’d question it, but he just can’t think straight.

Then he falls asleep.

Or so he thinks he fell asleep; he blinked and his phone showed it had been three hours, so he assumes that’s what happened. Neither Michelle nor TK has called him back, and he’s feeling somewhat better, so he figures it’s okay to drive. It’s early in the morning, so it’s not as if it’ll be busy on the roads. 

“I’m fine,” he tells his steering wheel, and promptly misses the slot for his key twice before getting it into the ignition. 

The few dregs of his rational brain tell him he should wait, or call TK or Michelle again, but most of him is tired and wants to go home, and far too out of it to realize that this is dangerous. So he slowly backs out of his parking space, gets on the main road, and follows his reliable GPS’ instructions to the best of his muddled mind’s ability. 

For the most part, he moves on muscle memory to get home. The GPS talks, but he can’t make sense of it, and his eyes can’t focus on the little map anyways. That should be a red flag for him to pull over, but it isn’t. Nothing is real, nothing matters, nothing gets through as he slowly turns left on a red light, and misses the car barrelling toward him until it slams head on into his Mustang. 

The good thing about the drugs is that he doesn’t really feel any pain. He’s just pinned, and even more dazed, as he stares at his cracked windshield and thinks vaguely that he should call Michelle. Again. He laughs at the thought until he runs out of breath entirely- which does not take very long, given the way the airbag holds him too tightly against his seat. 

He doesn’t know how much time passes before help arrives, but it doesn’t feel like very long at all. One moment, he’s in the accident, the next, there’s a turnout coat in his vision and a hand on his face. 

“Carlos? Babe, are you with me?”

He turns his head to see TK, ignorant of the pain of it. “TK? Baby, you came! I called you.” Then he coughs and his face feels sticky. “Forget why.”

Something flashes over TK’s face. “Did you hit your head?”

“No. Don’t think so?”

TK’s gentle hands cradle his head, feeling for any bumps, bruises or scrapes. There’s nothing. But then he shines his pen light in Carlos’ face and Lord above, it is bright. Whatever TK sees makes him bite his lip and glance behind him. 

“Are you on something?”

“My drink,” Carlos says helpfully. 

Then he coughs again and TK vanishes from in front of him. He mourns the loss as other members of the 126 pry open the vehicle and pull him out. He finds himself on his back on the ground, staring up at the dark sky. There are no stars. Maybe one or two, actually, but the city lights kill the visibility, and it is near black save for a couple pinpricks and the sliver of the moon. 

“Carlos, look at me,” Michelle says. 

He doesn’t know when Michelle got here. 

“Can you tell me what you took?”

“Di’n’t take anything.”

She presses her lips together and does something to his leg that really fucking hurts. He cries out in pain, which brings TK’s return to his side and a soothing hand carding through his hair. Michelle does the same to his other leg. It burns, pain finally cutting through the haze, and Carlos almost wishes he was still too fucked up to feel it. Slowly, pain floods his body. His chest, his neck, his back, his arm. His legs, though, they’re the worst. 

“TK, you riding along?” Michelle asks. 

“If you’ll have me.”

Suddenly Carlos is off the ground and in the air, watching people’s faces above him while the sky moves. TK is right there. He tries to reach for him with the arm that doesn’t hurt, but it’s so heavy and he misses TK’s face by a mile. 

“Carlos, what are you on?” TK asks again. 

“My drink,” Carlos repeats. 

Michelle lifts the platform Carlos is on into a white room that must be the back of the ambulance before cutting in with, “I think he’s saying he was drugged. I’ll have the hospital run a tox screen.”

The ambulance begins to move, every single jostling bump drawing whimpers from deep in Carlos’ chest. He hears a vague discussion that they can’t give him painkillers when they don’t know what he’s on, so he simply suffers with it. At least TK holds his good hand. The ride is so fast, but so painful, until he’s released from the ambulance and Michelle pushes him into the emergency room. 

“Carlos Reyes. Male, mid twenties, car accident victim. Both legs shattered, bruising on chest and torso. Sats 95, heart rate 121, bp 120/80. No head injury, but disoriented and dilated pupils consistent with substance use,” Michelle informs the emergency room. 

“My legs?”

“It’s okay, Carlos,” TK says beside him. “Don’t worry, you’re in good hands.”

Then TK and Michelle are both gone. Next thing he knows, there’s a mask on his face and the world is melting away. 

When he wakes up, nearly twelve hours later, the first thing he does is throw up in the trash can next to his bed. Then he registers his migraine, and the dull throbbing pain throughout his whole body. Last is Michelle’s presence beside his bed, which he notes when she offers him water to wash his mouth out with.

“What happened?” he asks. His voice sounds like sandpaper, and he coughs until he takes another sip of water. “Last thing I remember was being at the bar.”

Michelle looks away and bites the inside of her cheek. “We think you were drugged. They found rohypnol in your system. You started driving, probably to go home, and there was- you got in an accident, Carlos.”

Carlos tries to take inventory of his body. There’s a cast on his right arm, from just below his knuckles to his elbow. His chest aches. There’s a dull throb in his abdomen. Both of his legs are elevated and in bandages, not casts. Worst of all, his legs barely hurt. That can’t be a good sign. 

“Michelle…”

“Two broken and displaced ribs, clean break at the wrist, internal bleeding, multiple compound fractures on both legs.”

He throws his head back against his pillows. It’s not hard to piece together what she isn’t saying- there’s likely permanent damage to his muscles and nerves from the breaks in his legs, which means he may never walk without aid again- let alone return to work. The tears come unbidden. 

“Listen, Carlos-” 

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

She pats his hand and stands up. “Now that you’re awake, your sergeant wants to take your statement about what you do remember, so they can find the people who drugged you. Then TK and your parents will want to see you.”

In the moments between her leaving and Carlos’ superior coming in to talk to him, Carlos lets himself cry.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for day two of carlos reyes week on tumblr

Carlos relives what he remembers of the night before, which really isn’t much after he went to the parking lot. His drink was salty, he doesn’t know who did it, and he vaguely remembers sitting in his car. The rest is a blur. Luckily, the other driver in the accident sustained only minor injuries and doesn’t wish to hold him criminally liable, and he has a good case for not being responsible for his actions, so prison for a DUI is unlikely. That would certainly be the cherry on top of this whole thing. 

“Hang in there, Reyes,” his sergeant says before leaving the hospital room. 

After that is the doctor, to talk to him about his injuries with a grim twist to her lips that suggests he should prepare himself for the worst. She slowly goes through his injuries, top to bottom, describing his mild whiplash, his broken ribs, his broken and reset wrist, his internal bleeding (complete with a kidney removal when they couldn’t save it), and then the worst part. His legs. 

“Michelle told me there were multiple compound fractures?” he says. 

“That’s correct. Three on your right leg, four on your left. But in total, each leg had over a dozen fractures in it. You also suffered a traumatic dislocation of both hips.”

She pulls up the chair next to his bed and sits down, producing x-rays from her folder. Presumably they’re his. It all looks like something one would see on television, with how badly they’re broken. 

“When your cars collided,” she begins, “the front of your car was compressed into the cabin of the vehicle. Your legs were crushed by the force of it, and it’s a miracle they’re the only things that were. We’ve reset all the breaks and removed bone fragments where they had migrated into muscle tissue or nerve fibers.”

That’s what he was afraid of. Carlos may not be a doctor, nor a paramedic, but he has a rudimentary understanding of his body, enough to know what nerve damage on this scale could mean. All that it takes is the word from the doctor to make it real, so he nearly wishes the conversation to end here. It isn’t happening if no one says it. 

“What does that mean for my recovery? Will I walk again?”

The doctor’s hesitation says enough. 

“We’re hopeful that, with time, you may eventually be able to walk again, yes.”

“So that’s an ‘I don’t know.’”

He turns away from her, even if his neck twinges in protest, and watches his heart rate monitor. The beeping is faster than TK’s was when he was in the hospital after being shot. Regardless of if he ever walks again, it’s been made certain that his career is over. Unable to walk, to run, to do things on his own- there’s no way he’ll ever be able to be a cop again. Just like that, Officer Reyes no longer exists, and that burns in a whole different way. 

“We’re hopeful,” the doctor corrects.

When he doesn’t reengage, she stands up and clears her throat. 

“There are some visitors waiting to see you. After that, another doctor will be by to speak with you about what your prognosis means for your future. Nurses will be by periodically, but just press the call button if you need anything.”

She leaves. A few minutes later, his parents come in, each taking one side of him. They cry. They pray. They don’t ask about his injuries or what happened to him, seeming to know he isn’t ready to talk about it, but their presence means the world. Carlos feels like a little kid again, in the hospital with a high fever and his mother holding his hand while a nurse inserted an IV into his arm. He had been scared, he remembers. He’s even more scared now, in a way he doesn’t know how to cope with at all. He falls asleep with his parents holding his hands and his mother whispering prayers, but wakes up to TK on his phone next to the hospital bed. 

TK looks haggard, to say the least. There are puffy bags under his eyes, which are red like he’s been crying, and his bottom lip is split from his nervous habit of chewing on it. Knowing it’s because of him makes Carlos feel even worse, but there is little to be done about it. Almost right away, TK notices he’s awake and reaches out to push Carlos’ hair out of his face, his eyes going soft the way they so often do. 

“Hey,” he says gently.

“Hey.”

TK doesn’t say anything for a moment. They both watch each other, waiting for the moment where something is said, something is meant, but there’s too much to get through to say a single word. 

“You know I’ll always be here for you,” TK finally says. 

Then he reaches for Carlos’ good hand, taking it so gently it’s as though he’s afraid of breaking Carlos further. Carlos certainly feels more fragile than ever before, physically and emotionally. When he leaves this hospital, it will likely be in a wheelchair, which he may be confined to for the rest of his life. It’s a thought that burns him from the inside out and makes his lungs seize up in fear. 

He wants to go home and pretend none of this ever happened, but obviously such a thing isn’t an option, so all he can do is hold onto TK’s hand and try to keep the tears at bay. That proves unsuccessful the moment he looks at the bandages on his legs and bursts into tears.

It isn’t fair. Why did this have to happen to him? What did he do to deserve something like this? He was just starting his career, just learning how to protect the people of Austin. Furthermore, his relationship with TK is still so new and beautiful. Why should he have to lose it all when the people who drugged him may never see justice?

“It’s alright,” TK soothes, moving to brush the tears off Carlos’ face.

“No, it’s not!” 

He feels bad for snapping, but it really isn’t okay in the slightest. 

TK doesn’t get upset at him over it, because he understands that fear at least somewhat; it had been in doubt if he could return to work when he was shot. The question, obviously, was up for more debate than it is for Carlos. TK healed, and he returned to work. Carlos never will. The knowing is, in this instance, much worse. 

Someone knocks at the entrance to Carlos’ room, a burly doctor with greying hair and a clipboard whose coat labels him psychiatry. That’s the other doctor sent to talk to him. Carlos understands, on some level, the importance of dealing with this in a healthy way, but that doesn’t change the fact that he simply does not want to talk about it yet. He hasn’t processed the tragedy and, quite frankly, isn’t ready to. 

And of course, the doctor’s presence makes TK stand up to leave, causing Carlos to grab tighter onto his hand. “Stay?” he pleads.

“I’m not sure if…”

“You can stay if it makes Carlos more comfortable,” the doctor says. “I’m Dr. Charles, I’m the chief of psychiatry here at the hospital. Dr. Benson wanted me to come talk to you, if that’s okay.”

“Why?”

Dr. Charles grabs a second chair from up against the wall and sets it next to Carlos’ bed. He looks old, well worn, like a beloved book, and Carlos instantly wants to like him. However, he can’t help resenting what the man represents about the bleak outlook on his future. So he patiently waits for the answer.

“What you’ve just been through is an extraordinarily life-changing event, and I just want to make sure that, you know, you’re doing alright and you still have hope.”

At that, TK glances at Carlos and raises his eyebrows. This is to make sure Carlos isn’t going to kill himself because of his injuries. The thought didn’t cross his mind before, though he mulls it over briefly now and decides that it’s not something he would ever do. Any future is better than no future at all. He’s lucky to be alive still, and to give that up would be an affront to any angel that guided the first responders to him that night.

“I’m not going to kill myself,” he says.

“I didn’t say you were.”

Carlos fights the urge to roll his eyes. “That’s why you’re here though, isn’t it? To make sure I’m not a danger to myself?”

Dr. Charles stands up and offers a thin smile. 

“You know what, why don’t we talk more later? I’ll let you get some rest.”

He leaves Carlos and TK alone, which causes TK to go back to the tender, soothing touches to Carlos’ face and hand, as though trying to gentle away all the hurt. “Some rest isn’t a bad idea, babe,” he says softly.

At that moment, Carlos realizes how tired he actually is, and drifts off. 


	3. Chapter 3

Dr. Charles does not come back to speak to Carlos again in the six days he spends in the hospital before they tell him he can go home if he has someone to look after him. It is a position which TK volunteers for immediately, promising to look after Carlos even with the detailed instructions and words of the doctor. 

“He’ll need help bathing and using the bathroom,” she says. “His bandages will need to be checked and changed. This isn’t like your gunshot wound, Mr. Strand.”

The home care instructions ascribe a helplessness to Carlos, to the point that he will need to be lifted in and out of his wheelchair, and helped to do the most basic human functions. He gets the feeling that he will be resenting this inability, even more so than he already does.

“We’re setting up your checkup for seven days out,” she tells Carlos. “We’ll check on your stitches and your legs, and make sure you’re healing. You’ll also have to make an appointment within the next couple weeks with our psychology department.”

“Why?”

She sighs, the sort that says she knows how well it went with Dr. Charles. “Given what you’re going through, we really do recommend counseling.”

“We’ll talk about it,” TK fills in for him, before Carlos can snap that he doesn’t want to go. “Definitely going to think about it. But I’ll take him to his checkup next week, so it’ll be alright.”

“I’m right here.”

TK responds by kissing his forehead and murmuring an apology. He’s just trying to help, Carlos knows, but he’s irritable and already exhausted from the process of two nurses helping him from his bed into the uncomfortable hospital wheelchair they’re giving him. His legs are fully extended in front of him, an awkward feat, and he knows he’ll wind up across the backseat of an uber. It’s funny that TK will “bring him to his appointment” when he has no driver’s license, no car. The sentiment is sweet nonetheless. 

He takes him home in Paul’s truck and folds up the wheelchair in the bed of it. Carlos feels like a child again, relegated to the backseat while Carlos and TK sit up front and bicker about the radio. It almost distracts Carlos from his new reality until they reach his home and he has to wait for them to unfold his wheelchair from its collapsed state and help him into it. Paul offers to stay. TK brushes him off, saying he’ll call Michelle should he need any help. Through their exchange, Carlos feels like a small child. Talked about. Talked overhead. 

TK pushes Carlos up the path to his home, because Carlos is too weak to do it himself, and fumbles with the keys to the door before he gets it open and carefully maneuvers the chair through the house to the couch. The furniture will need to be rearranged, further spaced out. 

“Couch or bed?” TK asks. 

“Couch, it’s daytime.”

So then he’s pushed up against the side of it before TK lifts him to place him on the couch. It’s strange to remember that TK is a firefighter, and therefore stronger than his thin frame would lead to believe. His muscles flex and a slight sheen breaks out on his lower lip at Carlos’ dead weight, but he makes no complaint as he settles Carlos on the cushions, tucking throw pillows under his legs and promising to return with real ones to prop behind his back. 

He disappears for a moment. 

Carlos has to suppress a surprising wave of panic at the perceived feeling of being left alone. He isn’t ready to be by himself, hasn’t been since the accident. But of course, TK returns in a matter of moments with two pillows to tuck behind Carlos’ back, and promises to get him a glass of water to take his medications with. 

He’s on a slew of them now; pain pills, antibiotics, anti nausea, blood thinners. He can’t open the bottles with his cast, so TK has to do that for him too, pouring out the correct dosages of each into his palm and then offering them to Carlos’ good hand, followed by ice water that feels perfect on Carlos’ parched throat.

TK turns on the TV for him and hands him the remote before taking up residence in a chair borrowed from the dining room. It doesn’t look comfortable but Carlos recognizes there’s no room on the couch and no way to bend or contort his damaged legs to make it. 

“You don’t have to stick around and watch me,” he says. 

“No offense, Carlos, but I don’t think there’s a lot you can do on your own right now.”

While TK is right, of course, it still sends shame through Carlos’ body to know how powerless he has become. If someone broke in, he’d be helpless. He doesn’t even have access to his gun, currently locked up in a safe, but soon to be returned to APD alongside his badge. He worked hard to get where he is and now, it’s all gone thanks to some assholes in a bar. 

“Have you heard anything about the investigation?”

“What?”

“The investigation,” Carlos repeats, “about who drugged me?”

TK looks down at his hands. “They’re going over security footage from the bar, but they haven’t found anything yet.”

It’s difficult to fight the urge to claim that they won’t, but usually they find things pretty quickly when they have the right time frame. Besides, they could have killed him. Date rape drugs are dangerous and could have stopped his heart. He could be dead. 

Would he rather be dead than crippled?

He cringes at the word and the thought. 

Still tired, he only makes it through about half of an episode of some daytime rerun before he falls into a fitful sleep. This is when the dreams come. Though Carlos doesn’t remember much, if anything, about that night, his subconscious brings it all back. The sound of metal crunching, bones crushing, and the unbearable pain that came with it before his legs went numb entirely. His neck hurt. His arm hurt. He couldn’t breathe. Someone came to his window, a woman, and spoke to him but he didn’t understand. 

“911” is all he could make out. 

It was TK he saw next, at the side of his car. The door was gone. He can’t make out TK’s words either, but someone puts a neck brace on him before there’s the loud sound of the steering column getting sawed off to reach his legs. 

“Mother fucker,” someone said, a woman’s voice, soft and concerned. 

A man’s voice called for Michelle and then Carlos was face up on the ground while his legs were presumably set to restore circulation. He tried to look but the neck brace wouldn’t allow it. They lifted him up and TK’s face swam before his hazy vision. He couldn’t breathe. 

“Everything hurts,” he tried to cry, but his voice didn’t come. He couldn’t scream.

He wakes up sweating and alone, the lights off. 

Instantly he tries to get up but his legs don’t hold him, and he falls with a cry of pain. In moments, the lights turn on and TK is in front of him once more, much less pale but no less worried than in the dream. 

“Carlos, babe, are you alright?”

He realizes he’s crying and shakes his head, though it makes his neck twinge. TK pulls him close, holding him, but it just makes him feel as trapped as he was in that fucking car. He sobs and struggles to breathe normally because it hurts, it all hurts, and the world feels like it’s ending. 

“The world’s not ending, baby, I promise. It’s gonna be okay. We’ll get through this. 

Carlos fights the urge to say that he doesn’t want to.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise, bitch
> 
> i bet you thought you'd seen the last of me

Carlos doesn’t want to talk about his nightmare, even after TK gets him settled back on the bed he must have carried him to after Carlos fell asleep. His legs are screaming in pain from his sleepy attempt to stand on them, making the whole thing worse. 

“It’s been long enough that you can take more painkillers, if you want them,” TK says gently. 

Before Carlos can manage to nod, TK picks up the orange medication bottle and dumps a pill into his hand. There’s already a water bottle on the nightstand, presumably left there specifically in case Carlos needed his painkillers in the night, which TK uncaps for him and hands off. It’s thoughtful and necessary, but it makes him feel that much weaker. Down both legs and an arm, there’s almost nothing he can do for himself anymore. His one remaining limb isn’t even his dominant hand. He slams his fist down on the bed in frustration and squeezes his eyes shut. He knows he won’t be able to get back to sleep right now.

“I need a shower,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve been able to since the accident.”

TK nods, making no mention of the fact that it’s the middle of the night. “Let me get the trash bags for your bandages.”

Carlos doesn’t want to think about what his skin must look like under the bandages and the cast. Just the thought makes his stomach roll, so he quickly directs his thoughts to watching TK walk away. He misses being able to just appreciate TK’s body without feeling jealous of the ease with which he moves it. He waits there, unable to even put himself in his wheelchair, for TK to come back with saran wrap. He carefully, slowly, wraps each of Carlos’ legs, up to his upper thigh to make sure no water gets in. Then he does his arm. It feels kind of like being shrink wrapped, but he doesn’t say anything about it as TK picks him up to carry him directly to the ensuite. 

“Michelle bought you a shower chair, so that should make things easier.”

“When did she do that?”

TK kicks open the ajar bathroom door and then shut behind them to trap in warmth from the water. He sets Carlos on the chair and helps him adjust so he’s comfortable even with his legs stuck straight. Luckily the showerhead is detachable, so TK brings it down into his hands before turning it on. As Carlos waits, he spends a few long moments perfecting the temperature. 

“I’m sorry you have to do this.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” TK says. He brings the showerhead up to rain down on Carlos’ head. His hair is greasy, making it take just too long before he feels the water hit his scalp. Up until now, he didn’t realize just how gross he really felt. TK doesn’t say anything about it though, merely sets down the showerhead at the bottom of the tub and pours some shampoo into his palm. “None of this is your fault, and I love you. A lot of people do, and we’re all going to take care of you.” It feels heavenly as TK begins washing his tangled curls and undoing knots with his gentle fingers. “You’re not going to have to go through this alone.”

“Eventually I will,” Carlos argues. 

“Eventually,” TK repeats, “you’ll be physically by yourself, but only when you’re ready, and we’re all just a phone call away. I put in my saved up vacation days, so we don’t even have to think about that for a month.”

It’s not worth the fight to argue with TK about using up his precious vacation, but Carlos files the information away to feel guilty about regardless. He feels like a burden already, and to know that TK has done this only adds on. Still, Carlos merely shuts his eyes and lets TK rinse away his shampoo. Next, he wets a washcloth and suds it up with body wash. Instead of offering it to Carlos, he wordlessly starts washing his back. In the privacy of his mind, Carlos appreciates not being given the opportunity to deny the help he so obviously needs right now. Besides- it feels nice. 

By the time TK is done rinsing away all the soap, Carlos feels like a new person. TK produces a warm towel and helps him dry off before painstakingly unwrapping his cast and bandages to toss before bringing him back to the bedroom. It feels strangely nonsexual to be naked and held, so unlike the usual times he’s naked with TK, though he supposes this is to be expected. He just had a major trauma and life-changing injuries. He’d be worried if he was feeling sexual. 

TK brings him a tee shirt and boxers, both of which he helps Carlos put on. Carlos shakes his head at pajama pants. After breaking a sweat helping TK to dress him, he doesn’t think he can handle those. So he lays back down, and TK tucks him into the blankets before joining him with space between them. The distance feels like a million miles, so Carlos closes it, curling up next to TK and resting his head on his chest. It feels safe again. TK gingerly wraps an arm around him but doesn’t hold him so tightly as he used to. 

He shuts his eyes, and a few moments later, TK murmurs, “It was so scary, babe.”

Carlos doesn’t know how to respond. He doesn’t think TK knows he has yet to fall back asleep, as easy as it’s been since he was hurt. 

“I was the first one to the car because I thought it looked like yours, but I didn’t expect you to be inside it. Seeing you like that was terrifying. God, Carlos, there was so much blood.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he whispers. 

TK tenses beneath him and then lifts a hand to pet through Carlos’ hair. “I know, of course I know. But it might be the most scared I’ve ever been. And you were so out of it. We didn’t know what you were on, why you were like that. If you were in shock.” TK sniffles and Carlos feels his chest heave. “Then you started coughing up blood. I couldn’t stop staring at it while we tried to pull you out of the car. It was all over you. Everywhere.” 

“I don’t remember much.”

“I know, babe.”

TK finds his good hand and squeezes it. 

“I don’t know if they told you this, but you died. In the ambulance.”

Carlos sucks in a breath. No one did. 

“Your heart stopped beating. I had to do compressions. It took three shocks before you came back.”

Carlos doesn’t mention that he doesn’t remember that. It’s a given. He lifts his good hand up from TK’s grasp and cups his face, thumbing away his tears in the dark. He didn’t mean to scare anyone, though he’s sure they all know that. The guilt pervades anyway. 

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” TK says. It feels like an exchange they’re going to be having a lot over the course of the next month, something Carlos almost voices but doesn’t. “I’ll call the police tomorrow, see if they have any leads. Someone deserves to pay for this, Carlos, but it isn’t you.” 

He doesn’t trust his body not to protest if he shrugs, so he doesn’t respond at all. Soon, sleep drags him back under. 

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @milkymarjan


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